A tip of the writer's cap to Tom T Hall, whose lyric I've altered slightly for this title.
It dawned on me listening to his "Faster Horses (the Cowboy and the Poet)" that a lot of the common sense people used to learn came from those who came before's experiences and observations -- a good amount of which was then passed along in song and text. Personally, I can't recall a modern day song which conveys wisdom. In fact, not since the mid 1980s can I put a finger on a tune which might relay some tidbit of education.
I think that lack of passing along such information has contributed to what our Global Society has become. Because of the political correctness of not wishing to offend any one single being, such lines and topics are being shied away from. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it seems to me in casual observation.
Sure, at some point I'll contradict myself and eludicate about how imbibing of that magical amount of alcohol will turn the partaker into a blithering idiot -- I've seen it enough throughout my professional careers -- or how whatever certain topic I feel shouldn't be posed to impressionable beings is readily accessible to them, but hey, that'd be alright so long as they learn the right and wrong of it and make the appropriate decision wisely. Well, that much sounds like a load of Buffalo Chips, but that's my reasoning.
Nowadays, it's all about flash and eye-candy -- and while I'm all about the eye-candy -- lest we not forget how we get to enjoy all of that awesome visual stimulation. It's by being smart, taking the lumps when you have to, working hard for what you believe in, and being true to one's self -- for like the poet who gets called out by the cowboy in "Faster Horses" other people can see through the charade and one will just wind up alienated.
So, irregardless of how embarrassing a situation was to go through, share it with the next generation. Extemporate even the inane, forging past their reactions, for -- as I did growing up -- they do actually listen and figure things out, though it may take longer for some. Though, again, to overly generalize, I fear this rationalization is fading away from society, and I greatly miss it.
Can the mysteries of life be summed into four words? Perhaps not, but every three and a half or four minutes clue us in.
Well said MO! I concur heartily. I know there are wonderfully skilled songwriters out there but for the mainstream music the message is a sad one. Get drunk, get laid. That`s pretty much it from what I hear. Give me a John Mellencamp or Neil Young song and I`ll give you a message, and a damned important one!
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